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THE GULF IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

Archaeological evidence suggests that Dilmun returned
to
prosperity after the Assyrian Empire stabilized the
TigrisEuphrates area at the end of the second millennium B.C. A
powerful ruler in Mesopotamia meant a prosperous gulf, and
Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king who ruled in the seventh
century
B.C., was particularly strong. He extended Assyrian
influence as
far as Egypt and controlled an empire that stretched from
North
Africa to the Persian Gulf. The Egyptians, however,
regained
control of their country about a half-century after they
lost it.

A series of other conquests of varying lengths
followed. In
325 B.C., Alexander the Great sent a fleet from India to
follow
the eastern, or Persian, coast of the gulf up to the mouth
of the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers and sent other ships to
explore the
Arab side of the waterway. The temporary Greek presence in
the
area increased Western interest in the gulf during the
next two
centuries. Alexander's successors, however, did not
control the
area long enough to make the gulf a part of the Greek
world. By
about 250 B.C., the Greeks lost all territory east of
Syria to
the Parthians, a Persian dynasty in the East. The
Parthians
brought the gulf under Persian control and extended their
influence as far as Oman.

The Parthian conquests demarcated the distinction
between the
Greek world of the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian
Empire in
the East. The Greeks, and the Romans after them, depended
on the
Red Sea route, whereas the Parthians depended on the
Persian Gulf
route. Because they needed to keep the merchants who plied
those
routes under their control, the Parthians established
garrisons
as far south as Oman.

In the third century A.D., the Sassanians, another
Persian
dynasty, succeeded the Parthians and held the area until
the rise
of Islam four centuries later. Under Sassanian rule,
Persian
control over the gulf reached its height. Oman was no
longer a
threat, and the Sassanians were strong enough to establish
agricultural colonies and to engage some of the nomadic
tribes in
the interior as a border guard to protect their western
flank
from the Romans.

This agricultural and military contact gave people in
the
gulf greater exposure to Persian culture, as reflected in
certain
irrigation techniques still used in Oman. The gulf
continued to
be a crossroads, however, and its people learned about
Persian
beliefs, such as Zoroastrianism, as well as about Semitic
and
Mediterranean ideas.

Judaism and Christianity arrived in the gulf from a
number of
directions: from Jewish and Christian tribes in the
Arabian
desert; from Ethiopian Christians to the south; and from
Mesopotamia, where Jewish and Christian communities
flourished
under Sassanian rule. Whereas Zoroastrianism seems to have
been
confined to Persian colonists, Christianity and Judaism
were
adopted by some Arabs. The popularity of these religions
paled,
however, when compared with the enthusiasm with which the
Arabs
greeted Islam.